Of the entire episode of the reunion of the Fernández, of the subsequent crossing in off and on of Matias Kulfas Christianity and its traumatic exit, there is a conclusion that precedes all: being loyal to Alberto pays dearly. Defending the President, siding with him internally, or taking shelter under his wing proved to be lousy business for all who tried. The now former Minister of Production joined a long list of those who believed in the president and now regret it.
This can be attested to by a former minister, from the albertista kidney, who two months ago he visited Fernández in the Quinta de Olivos. It was the first time they had spoken or seen each other since the President had fired him. It had been a case similar to that of Kulfas: at a time when the potatoes were burning, the president had handed him over to the beasts. At the time, almost the entire Cabinet – not just the expelled one – had felt that the way the resignation was handled had been reckless. That Alberto had handled himself as if he didn’t care about the minister or his long career, as if he cared about nothing more than him and his dreams of re-election. It was a feeling that these days was repeated.
From that meeting, a lunch that lasted several hours, the former official left with an idea. “Is awesome. Alberto told me that the decision had cost him a lot, that it had not been easy and that blah blah blah, pBut he never apologized or apologized. Not even once”, he later said, in a portrait of the presidential psychology that speaks for itself. All those who suffered the same fate subscribe to this reality. Marcela Losardoformer Minister of Justice, arrived as Alberto’s historical partner in the world of Law, but never received the support he expected from his close friend in the face of K. The icing on the cake of that tragicomedy was that the presidency announced his resignation two weeks before it was formalized, days that Losardo lived as on the deck of the Titanic – although it sounds incredible, the curtain of that film sounded in an interview on Channel 9 at the exact moment that Fernández announced that Martín Soria would be the replacement. Nicholas Trotta, Minister of Education, suffered time and again the public disavowals made by the president, such as when he came out to advise against the closure of classrooms due to the second wave and the next day Fernández announced the opposite. The icing on the cake of this -another- tragicomedy was when the president came out to defend a teacher who, totally off center, was yelling at a student during a political debate. Trotta had criticized that action and Alberto’s defense of the woman was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This official, like Kulfas, was also surprised when the President had him fired.
A book could be written on the other cases. Gines Gonzalez Garcia, The Minister of Health, who was expelled due to the VIP Vaccine scandal, asked Alberto to let him hold a press conference to give his version of the facts. In a brief Whatsapp message sent to him by the then Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, Fernandez denied his only request. Felipe Solá could speak for a long time about what he understands to be the president’s lack of codes. Cafiero fired him by phone when he was in Mexico, minutes from presiding over a CELAC summit in his capacity as Foreign Minister. On top of that, the one who notified him of the decision was himself who was going to replace him. “He didn’t even have the guts to tell me.” It is a phrase that the former Buenos Aires governor usually repeats. Agustin Rossi talso suffered a similar mistreatment. Cafiero and Alberto convinced him to leave his position as Minister of Defense to go to compete in the primaries in Santa Fe. When CFK decided to support the rival candidate, the President avoided getting into the fight and let go of his hand. Rossi lost by several heads in that internship, and on top of that he found out during a live interview that the president had asked him to resign. louis basterra, former Minister of Agriculture, found out on television about the failed expropriation of Vicentin. At that time he thought it was a mistake due to the vertigo caused by the arrival of the pandemic, but more than a year later he realized the opposite: there, the closure of meat exports was also reported on television again. .
These are just a few cases, which are aggravated by Alberto’s obvious double standard: he did not fire the K officials who resigned after the PASO, Luana Volnovichhead of the PAMI who went to vacation in the Caribbean with her boyfriend -second in that organization-, did not throw her out either, Fernanda Vallejo, the ultra K deputy who tried to occupy him and whippersnapper didn’t even send him a complaint. But Kulfas got rid of him with a hurtful tweet in which he complains of “talking off to the detriment of the other”, a practice that the President never stopped doing. “Alberto Fernández, who is now so horrified by the issue of off-line operations, did one every Sunday against me,” former multi-convicted minister Julio de Vido said today on AM 530.
For all this is that today no member of the Cabinet is encouraged to put their hands in the fire by Alberto: experience proves that it goes wrong. Two of the ministers, former mayors, are already looking for a way to return to their low salary before the internal crisis -and the lack of presidential support- swallows their political career. “For something in Cabinet meetings we don’t talk about politics “says, resigned, a member of this staff. Everyone on this team looks with concern at Martin Guzman: if history repeats itself, he will be the next to whom the President will let go of his hand. “It is that Alberto has the loyalty of a mosquito,” is a phrase that Guillermo Moreno, a former Secretary of Commerce who treated him a lot during the K governments, often repeats.
There is a phrase that the Pope -another who felt betrayed by Alberto- uses to explain the policy: “The power that is not occupied is lost”. Alberto did not occupy it and those who wanted to do it in his name had them expelled. A few still resist in the trenches -his inner circle of Olivos, and ministers such as Cafiero and Aníbal Fernández-, but the outcome of this story seems obvious.
